Meting out justice equally

Are U.S. citizens being detained unlawfully for deportation by federal immigration authorities, denied their constitutional rights and mistreated by local law enforcement? On Nov. 29, The Los Angeles Times published results of analysis at Syracuse University of ICE records. “Since 2002, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has wrongly identified at least 2,840 United States citizens as possibly eligible for deportation, and at least 214 of them were taken into custody for some period of time.”The Times article went on to say that because ICE stopped releasing data in January of those it takes into custody, it’s impossible to see how many citizens have been caught up in the aggressive push to increase arrests and deportations.In June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a statement. It read, “Last fiscal year, ICE reviewed 1,101 cases where aliens claimed to be U.S. citizens or where the agency identified indicia of potential U.S. citizenship.” Evidence showed that 15 percent of those cases were likely U.S. citizens, ICE determined. On Nov. 29, a California man was awarded a $20,000 settlement. Sergio Carrillo had sued the federal government and ICE agents claiming his rights had been violated when he was arrested in July 2016. Immigration officials detained him for three days, ignoring his repeated claims that he’s a U.S. citizen and his pleas to check his citizenship status. In his suit, Carrillo alleged that ICE “never took any steps to investigate his citizenship.” He was finally released when an attorney provided officials with his U.S. passport. Carrillo, who works as a contractor and landscaper, has been a U.S. citizen since 1994. Another Californian, a 59 year-old hairdresser filed a lawsuit against the federal government and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in June. Guadalupe Plascencia claims she was arrested and detained in March by ICE agents who verbally abused her while she was in custody and “ignored documentary evidence” that she’s a U.S. citizen. Plascencia feared she’d be deported even though she’s been a U.S. citizen for nearly 30 years. The ordeal has shaken her faith in a system that arbitrarily withholds the constitutionally guaranteed rights of selective U.S. citizens. Last March, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Guatemala sued the federal government. Rony Chavez Aguilar claims that ICE illegally detained him for 18 days without access to a lawyer or a judge. He was released from detention shortly after March 27 when his attorney, who is also director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, filed the lawsuit. Aguilar has been a U.S. citizen since 2001. The writ of habeas corpus is a legal procedure that prevents the government from detaining a prisoner indefinitely without showing cause. “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was so sacred to the founding generation,” wrote Amanda Tyler, a University of California law professor, “that they included protection against its suspension in the original body of the Constitution.”One of the core principles of our own legal system and an international human right under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the presumption of innocence. A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. It’s the prosecutor’s obligation to prove guilt, not the accused’s to prove her/his innocence.But immigrant rights advocates fear that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence are being forsaken for an immigrant witch hunt.